On the eve of last week’s House Homeland Security Committee hearing concerning Iran/Hezbollah and the threat to the U.S. homeland, we penned an opinion piece together with our colleague, HSPI Senior Fellow Michael Downing, the Deputy Chief and Commanding Officer of the Counterterrorism and Criminal Intelligence Bureau of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). Some important takeaways:

Based on recent activity, LAPD has elevated the Government of Iran and its proxies to a Tier One threat.

The city of Los Angeles contains the most active Hezbollah presence in the United States.

Crime and terror are converging. Hezbollah’s nexus with criminal activity is greater than that of any other terrorist organization.

Shia and Sunni forces are, in fact, cooperating — as surprising or counterintuitive as this may be.

Convergence of these threat vectors has been accompanied by concerning indicators of adversary intent, which means now is the time to think through and operationalize U.S. strategy designed to puncture the threat balloon before it ever goes up. What can and should we do? Among other things, gather and share information, search for indications and warnings, and reach out to state and local authorities and communities, where the rubber meets the road. Disruption should be our determined goal. To get there, we must further comb through the lessons learned about tactics, techniques, and procedures used in recent incidents from Baku to Bangkok.

Security Debrief is a blog dedicated to homeland security, terrorism and counter-terrorism, intelligence and law enforcement that provides context to the debates, policies and politics that are playing out in Washington, D.C.